History

Sections

The Committee for Monetary Research & Education was founded in 1970 by distinguished monetary scholars and financial professionals concerned by the the threats to monetary stability introduced at Bretton Woods that began to manifest in the 1960s.

Original members included:

Henry Hazlitt

Principal editorial writer on finance and economics for The New York Times from 1934 to 1946, financial journalist for Newsweek from 1946 to 1966, Contributing Editor to National Review from its founding, and author of several books, including the classic work Economics in One Lesson.

Arthur Kemp

Principle aide to former President Hoover and professor at Claremont McKenna College.

Jacques Rueff

Entered the civil service in 1923 as an inspecteur des finances, was involved in the comprehensive French economic reforms led by Raymond Poincaré between 1926 and 1928, and became an assistant governor of the Bank of France. Charles de Gaulle appointed him chairman of a committee to examine France’s financial problems, which produced the policy of “la vérité des prix—a return to the price mechanism of the market” and restored prosperity to France.

Robert Triffin

Received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1938 and taught there until 1942. He held positions in the US Federal Reserve System (1942–1946), the International Monetary Fund (1946–1948), and the OECD (1948–1951). He developed the widely known Triffin dilemma, which held that the use of a national currency as the global reserve currency must create balance of payments imbalances and eventually a currency crisis.

John Exter

American economist, member of the Board of Governors of the United States Federal Reserve System, senior vice president of First National Bank (later Citibank), and founder of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.

Melchior Palyi

A distinguished, internationally recognized educator, author, economist, and financial expert, Palyi taught in the Universities of Kiel, Goettingen, and Berlin. In 1928 he was appointed chief economist to the Deutsch Bank in Berlin. From 1931 to 1933 he served in the capacity of scientific advisor to the Reichsbank of Germany. In the United States, he taught at the Universities of Chicago, Wisconsin, and Northwestern. He acquired a national reputation as a scientific and popular writer, public lecturer, radio commentator and consulting economist.

Ambassador Middendorf studied under both Joseph Schumpeter and Ludwig von Mises before embarking on a career in finance. Middendorf later served as Secretary of the Navy and Ambassador to the European Communities, the Organization of American States, and the Netherlands.

Though their warnings went mostly unheeded, their concerns were validated by the inflation of the 1970s that saw the market plunge in real terms, interest rates spike above 20%, and the value of the dollar collapse in terms of gold, oil, and other purchasing power metrics.

The Committee seeks to promote greater public understanding of the nature of monetary institutions and of the central role that a healthy monetary system plays in the well-being, indeed, in the very survival of a free society. The CMRE continues its mission through bi-annual dinners, focused meetings on specific issues, the publication of monographs on monetary topics, and an outreach program to young professionals in finance and economics.